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OPINION

EDITORIAL: EPA won’t crack down on polluters

Published 1:11 p.m. ET March 20, 2018

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The federal Environmental Protection Agency has placed the American Cyanamid Superfund site next to TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater on its priority list for 2018. File The federal Environmental Protection Agency has placed the American Cyanamid Superfund site next to TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater on its priority list for 2018.(Photo11: STAFF PHOTO: BOB MAKIN / FILE PH)Buy Photo

Scott Pruitt, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, says federal authorities are going to crack down on businesses to make them clean up polluted sites all across the country.

That should be encouraging news to New Jersey, with more contaminated Superfund sites than any state in the country, right?

Wrong. There’s simply no reason to believe Pruitt is sincere.

The Trump Administration remains exceedingly anti-environment, favoring corporate interests at virtually every turn. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt was a notorious critic of EPA regulations and heavy-handedness; he got the administrator’s job to weaken the EPA, not make it more efficient and effective. Funding for the agency has been slashed.

So this EPA head for this administration, operating with greatly reduced resources, is going to more aggressively enforce the laws in going after Big Business?

No way. That, however, is what Pruitt tried to sell to reporters in Washington Monday, as reported by NJ Advance Media. He blathered on about demanding accountability and working diligently, classic fudge words when there’s no real plan. It’s all designed to pretend the lack of funding for the agency —and more importantly, the lack of interest within the administration and from the White House — won’t hamper cleanup efforts.

In December, the administration released a list of 21 high-priority sites across the country to be targeted for immediate attention. The list included three New Jersey sites, including the old American Cyanamid land in Bridgewater, part of which now houses TD Bank Ballpark and the Bridgewater Promenade shopping center. The other NJ sites are in Newark and Wood-Ridge.

The announcement was billed as identifying projects to be fast-tracked for cleanup. But there was more to the story. The priority list didn’t reflect sites that are most contaminated, or represented the biggest environmental hazard beyond the site, or those nearest completion. Instead, it focused on sites close to a particular milestone in the long cleanup process. For example, the looming milestone for American Cyanamid was a public comment period for a cleanup plan. But once that’s addressed, the site would be removed from the priority list, replaced by other projects with closer milestones. Expect Pruitt and the EPA to then celebrate the fact that American Cyanamid has graduated from the list.

And oh by the way, there’s no extra funding devoted to this prioritization effort.

What does it all mean? Pruitt’s just tossing out words; there’s no genuine motivation behind them. Pollution cleanup in general will slow under the Trump Administration, not speed up. Most polluters will do what they’ve always done — duck responsibility. Unless the administration has dreamed up creative new ways to force polluters to act, and goes through with them, Pruitt’s accountability talk is empty.

In that culture, we should perhaps be thankful for any progress at all at sites like American Cyanamid. But it won’t accomplish much under a leadership in Washington so dismissive of environmental concerns.